July 30, 2010

in the last year, i released an album, and have put a lot of elbow grease into "getting myself out there," whatever that means. i had tons of time on my hands, and figured "why not put it all into music?" but i quickly saw that i was throwing my energy around a great deal, and not getting the results i wanted. i became depleted and cynical. i cycled in and out of thinking that i didn't want to do music anymore. why put so much effort into something that makes me feel so horrible in the end?

but somehow, i sorta started to be okay with the fact that not everything happens all at once. i tried very hard to realize that even though my life & career is not where i want it to be- or where i've imagined myself by this point- it's okay. i will make music no matter what, because it satisfies me. because i have, indeed, progressed in many areas- music and otherwise. i continue to make progress every day. and as long as there is progress, that's all anyone can ask for.

so in that spirit, i decided to jump into ariel's competition, and here i go :)

now, to get started with week one: goal setting!

i would like it to be duly noted how weird it is to lay all these out for the whole world gawk at. i like to maintain some air of "mystery" or whatnot, and it makes me squirmy for people to see i actually have some expectation of succeeding at my crackpot dream.

anyway...

short term/ easy goals... next 2-3 months:

New pickup- sounds like buttcrack. need to haul ass to first flight and ask shira how to unscrew this fugly thing and ebay it out of my life. I have a list of suitable pickups that saul thoughtfully provided for me a few months ago. this should all happen relatively soon, so maybe i'll give myself a date of 8/20/10

Website- I know I need this up and running. To date, I’ve never had an “official” website. I was planning on setting one up with bandzoogle, so I guess I can make that a goal for myself this month? 8/31/10

planning a new record- finding someone to help record it or produce/ arrange, etc. i've got a bunch of new material i'm really excited about! also, i realize how important having new content is, as well as building a catalogue blah blah, soo… gotta have a new record. i'm kinda hoping to get someone on board in the next few months, soooo i'll say by 11/10

Long term... next 12 months

Booking- I need to be playing shows consistently. Last year, I read this Derek sivers article about amber rubarth. It inspired me. i had a lot of time, so I booked a bunch of shows all over the northeast. It was fun! ...but stressful to plan and didn’t really make me any money. However. the most valuable thing about those experiences was that it made me 100% better as a live performer. I want to continue to get better, and also to grow my email list/ fan base, so this needs to happen.

My fantasy goal is to be able to play 50 shows in the next 12 months. but i need to be realistic... this is difficult with a day job. That would mean basically playing one show per week… not a good idea in nyc, because of “draw” issues. I could instead go out of town every weekend, but I think that would burn me out- I know myself, and need some recoup time if i don't want to break down.

probably a more realistic goal is about 25 shows per year/ 2 shows per month… so, maybe 1 show per month in the city, and 1 outside it. A schedule like this will keep me on my toes, without driving a gal to exhaustion.

Sales – who doesn’t want more sales? a realistic number for me is $1,500 in physical and digital sales (15 albums per month), however of course i'd like more. maybe I could get some help reaching this goal through the imix method- which I’ve actually tried before… results kind of fizzled, but weren’t totally flat. I could give it another whirl.Mailing list- it is definitely a huuuge goal of mine to grow this thing into a monster! I’ve got 210 subscribers now, and and I’d like to see it grow to 1,000 in 12 months. That’s 65 new subscribers per month, not counting people who unsubscribe. Yikes! But maybe with the 2 shows per month I plan on doing, plus some other methods that have been working for me, I can do it.

New record/ crowd funding- i’d like to get something happening with kickstarter to help fund my potential new baybee. the whole mailing list thing ties in, because i absolutely need new mail subscribers to help make it happen. How much could I realistically get? Probably $1,500-$2,000. That’s about enough to cover pressing and mastering but hey, it’s something.

Synching songs- yup, I’d love to get some songs placed in tv, movies, etc …along with, uh, every musician? there’s definitely only so much of this I have control over, and have already put my songs into several libraries. I can’t *make* music supervisors pick my song, so it’s just the waiting game. It can take months, and even years to get tracks placed. If there’s another, speedier process to getting this done that the folks at cyber pr know about, I’d love to hear about it.

so, here's my work in progress in physical form. i even wrote it on pretty, expensive manuscript paper that i normally reserve for when i send notes along with physical cds to bloggers and such:

and now, just because i feel like it, a picture of my cat in a shoebox

for those not wanting to click the link, what happens is this: first, one buys ariel hyatt's new book. it is basically a road map for independent musicians- how to set themselves up online, build a mailing list, create a "brand," etc. and you blog each week about each chapter you read. relaying your struggles, what works, what doesn't, and how it's helping you along the way as an artist. at the end, a winner is picked, and that person receives a free pr campaign :)

i skimmed through it already... some of the material, i feel like i'm already familiar with, as i'm a regular reader of music think tank and other music business blogs. but it definitely seems like there are some new tricks i can learn, plus it will force me to apply myself a bit harder.

so even though i don't write here that often, i'm just throwing it out there... this blog is going to switch gears for at least nine weeks. it's about to get business-y up in h-eah.